After a few false starts and Nor’easters with snow, ice and freezing rain it is now officially Spring in the Hudson Valley. Marchuary was tough and April was only marginally better. Mother Nature is now… More

Strange things happen in the garden at night. Apparently the Yellow Pears have been cozying up next to the Romas when no one was looking. That is the only explanation I can find for this little situation.

So far this season’s tomatoes are great to look at and I’ve been told good to eat too. I had friends over for a small BBQ and a few were noshing on tomatoes and basil straight off the vine and I saw a few munching on the lettuce too! This is why I love my friends! And my tomatoes!.

So far things are looking good! There are tomatoes on most of my plants, baby Eggplants are forming and I can see tiny peppers starting to grow. In other words it’s time for some more fertilizer in the next week or two. And probably also time to add a couple of more calcium pills to the tomatoes containers.

Blossom end rot has been an issue with some of my tomatoes the past two or three years and regular calcium tablets seem to do the trick. When initially planting the tomato containers I’ll put one to two tablets per plant in the pot near the roots and when they start to produce fruit another one to two tablets depending on the size of the tomato or plant. I originally tried crushing the tablets in my food processor and using the calcium as a powder. It worked well enough but I live in an urban area and keeping unmarked white powder in a ziplock baggie in my garden bucket is probably not a good idea.

The summer-like weather has made my veggies very happy. We caged up the tomatoes this weekend, they are getting big very quickly. Over the years we’ve gravitated to the 3-sided cages as opposed to the conical ones because they give more support. We tend to grow indeterminate tomatoes and in a good year the vines have reached upwards of 8-ft.

This year we have a little bit of a mix in types, the Black Krims are determinate and tend to be short and bushy overall.

It’s been a week and most of the lettuce seed has germinated, I expect the rest of it to be up by the end of the week. I planted Oak Leaf, Deer Tongue and a red lettuce that I don’t remember the name of.

That’s a quickie on where things are in the garden, I’ll do an herbal update later!

Nearly 10 years ago I planted a rain garden in the front of my house and it was little and cute and quite well behaved. Needless to say it has grown and developed a mind of it’s own.

The petite Japanese Maple has grown a rather spectacular canopy thanks in part to our cutting down the two huge Arbor Vitae that were shading it. The bee balm were getting shaded out so they moved over the winter towards the middle of the garden, the Caramel Heuchera are hidden somewhere under hostas along with the astilbe.

Poking out along the edges are irises and daylilies. The grand centerpiece is the flowering quince I planted about three years ago that has decided to love life. The key with my garden was to find plants that only needed part sun and didn’t mind having wet feet. This would not have been a good area to plant lavender.

I think I’m going to have to thin some of this out to give everyone some breathing room.

By design this is the best watered spot around the yard as I have three drainspouts coming off of the main roof and the porch roofs. I love the rain garden concept and I have used it to a lesser extent on the other side of the house. Living in the city is challenging in that most of the lot is taken up by the house and driveway.

It’s been way too long since I’ve posted because all the other things in life get in the way. Well, I’m back and playing catch up on the season. Got too involved with work and school to get seeds started so I am relying on seedlings from the garden center for this year’s growing experience. And the weeds in my herb bed were taking over-still have sore muscles from Sunday’s weeding and planting!